


Pride, Panache, and Procrastination: Potion Master Myoui’s Guide to Getting the Girl

by Slicki



Series: Oh, Fantasy Free Me [2]
Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Fluff, extremely mild one-sided enemies to mutual oh shit i've fallen for her, so it's misana in the witcher 3 verse and they fall in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slicki/pseuds/Slicki
Summary: Mina learns that people are far, far more complex than potions will ever be.At least they're less likely to explode.
Relationships: Minatozaki Sana/Myoui Mina, Park Jisoo | Jihyo/Yoo Jeongyeon
Series: Oh, Fantasy Free Me [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029438
Comments: 14
Kudos: 206





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dubfu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dubfu/gifts).



> For starters, happiest of birthdays to [dubfu](https://twitter.com/heartshooketh)!! You're a wonderful friend, and I hope you enjoy this misana it's taken me 100000 years to write.
> 
> For seconds, this fic is a companion piece to my [Fantasy Jeonghyo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21014888). It's not necessary reading by any means, but it definitely might make things a bit clearer/fun.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of note, this chapter is mainly najeongmi because I'm nothing if not a sucker for trios. There is indeed misana next chapter, never fear =P

Mina looks up as the peal of a bell rings through the shop. A practiced smile slides on to her face with well worn ease as her eyes await a customer. It’s been slow lately, not due to any negative business reviews or lack of injuries, but solely because a recent infestation of spriggans had led to the guilds cleaning out their more common stock for the foreseeable future. Her father is in the back now, brewing away as quickly as he can.

After a few customerless seconds, Mina writes it off as an aborted entrance. She looks down at the vial she had been fiddling with, rolls it between her thumb and forefinger and watches the light red liquid slosh from side to side. It’s something new she had been working on in her free time, a way to make use of spare ingredients and hopefully produce something worthwhile. Her father had scoffed at her, lamenting a waste of time and resources, but Mina had persisted. Quietly, and in the dead of night when sleep seemed a bit too elusive, but she had persisted.

And it had worked. Theoretically. Mina doesn’t often find herself getting into situations that would require a pain potion, nor does she feel confident in presenting her creation to her father. She holds the vial up to the candlelight, watches the flame’s reflection split. It had been the longrube, in the end—the balancing component that allowed Mina to skip an earlier stabilizing step and add in a drop of mint extract for flavor. It seemed appropriate that she had finished it last night, in the early morning of her 19th birthday.

She allows pride to flood her now, in the middle of the day as people go about their business outside, as her father labors over potions a bit too slow in the making and tinged with an assumed bitterness. She mulls over different concoctions, mentally arranges and rearranges known measurements and orders and wonders what else lay hidden in old tradition. What else—

“Hey!”

Mina jerks forward, hands slipping and sending the bottle upwards. It’s white-hot panic that drives her forward, has her lunging over the counter to catch what she had worked so hard on. She could make it again, sure, but this is her pride and joy.

Miraculously, the tips of her fingers manage to find enough purchase on the bottle to stop it from plummeting to the ground. Her lower stomach hurts from where she had rammed herself into the counter to lean over it, but it’s worth it.

“Sorry for scaring you.” The voice comes again, this time sounding much more reserved and just a little bit mournful.

Mina jolts again, but this time the bottle thankfully stays secure in her grasp. Her head whips up to discover the source of the voice, only for a strangled yelp to leave her lips.

Mina has seen blood before, has seen the scars and lashings that monster hunting gifts those brave (or foolish) enough to try. She’s been around death and combat since she was a child, helping her father distribute and administer potions. It comes with the territory of being a child of Potion Master Myoui, once the emperor’s personal potioneer.

So it’s not the blood covering the dark-haired woman in front of her that surprises her, but the wide and slightly manic grin on her face. It’s clear that whatever happened to her was very recent, as Mina spots several scratches along her arm still bleeding freely. This woman is not someone Mina recognizes, and she can’t quite make out a guild sigil anywhere on the woman’s bloodstained clothing. She looks young, but Mina can’t quite tell.

“I came in, but then I had to stop by the entrance for a second because my leg was killing me,” the woman explains, nodding along to her own words. Mina finds herself mirroring the movement, even as the words fail to fully process. “While I was on the floor, I looked around and noticed that your pain potions seem to be out. Do you happen to have any in the back?”

Mina does her best to compose herself. “W-well, no. My father is currently brewing a fresh stock, but we’ve been cleaned out thanks to that spriggan infestation.” The bloodied woman tilts her head, look of confusion clear even through the layer of blood.

“Spriggan infestation?”

“Yes,” Mina says slowly, unsure of how anyone could’ve missed the news. “The Emperor called all the guilds to take to the woods to clear out an infestation that had gotten out of control. Our stock was depleted from that.”

“Oh.” The woman shrugs and then immediately winces at the movement, her smile never truly faltering. “That explains it. I’ve been out tracking an archgriffin for the last couple weeks. Just got back.”

“A-an archgriffin?” It’s been years since she stuttered this much in one conversation, but every sentence this woman throws out is one surprise after the other, all accompanied by a bunny-toothed grin no less manic than it had been from the start. “By yourself?” She doesn’t know the ins and outs of the bounty system, but she knows that it usually takes at least five people to down an archgriffin. This woman doesn’t even have a visible weapon on her.

“No, no.” The woman waves her hands in front of her, wincing again, and Mina really just wants to grab her by the shoulders and tell her to stop moving, for the love of the gods. “I had a friend with me. She’s taking care of securing the bounty, and I was told to go fix myself up before I bled out on the streets. So here I am!”

One other—Mina squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her head. She can focus on processing this later. For now, she has a profusely bleeding and possibly unhinged woman in her shop, and she needs to help her. The problem is that she truly has nothing to help this woman. Some bandages, possibly, but these wounds look severe. She either needs a trained medic to suture her up or—the bottle in her hand catches the candlelight once more, winks at her.

The other woman seems to notice Mina’s attention shifting. “Oh, hey! Is that a pain potion?” She takes a step closer, and it takes everything Mina has to not rear back at the suddenly overwhelming smell of death and combat.

She looks down at the vial in her hands, at the representation of countless brush-offs and sleepless nights. Are you a pain potion, she wonders, swirling the liquid gently. Everything Mina had studied and researched should mean that this is indeed a pain potion, albeit one that smelled of mint. It could be brewed two days faster than the current standard, one day faster if the mint was added.

She could say no and continue to wonder, or she could prove something to herself.

“Yes,” Mina says, extending it with a steady smile. The hand she has below the counter shakes, and she presses it against the wooden surface with her thigh to try and maintain her calm facade. “It is. It’s from our new line.” She extends the vial outward before she can second guess herself.

The woman grins, and, contrary to every other action she’s taken since walking into Mina’s father’s shop, very gently takes the vial from Mina’s hands. Mina closely watches every movement thereafter.

“Thank you,” the woman says. “You’re kind of a lifesaver. I don’t think my friend was expecting there to be a potion shortage when she sent me off to get healed.”

Mina doesn’t miss how the woman grimaces right before she puts the potion to her lips in anticipation of the bitter flavor. She doesn’t miss when the woman downs the vial in one shot. She doesn’t miss the way the wounds stop bleeding almost immediately, how some of the smaller cuts begin to knit themselves together. And she absolutely doesn’t miss when the mint taste registers.

The woman flinches backwards, eyeing the bottle in bewilderment and sniffing it before leveling a look at Mina. “Are you sure this was a pain potion? That tasted good. Potions don’t taste like that. ”

“Well I don’t know,” Mina says, smile dancing around her lips. Her chest feels like it’s going to burst, pride burning a path from her stomach to her throat. She can’t remember the last time she’s felt so light. “Do you feel like you’re in less pain?”

The woman pauses and turns her head slowly, taking in the effects of the potion. She says nothing, only continues a slow survey of her body. Eventually, she raises her head, and Mina’s heart skips a beat at the sheer wonder in her eyes.

“I’m Im Nayeon,” she says, pointing at herself with her blood-covered thumb, “and one day I’m going to have the best guild around here. Can I interest you in a job as my Head Potioneer?”

Mina is 19 when she meets Im Nayeon, 19 when she first learns that there are, in fact, people out there willing to listen to her.

  
Mina is 19 years and two weeks old when she meets Jeongyeon.

She drags her fingertip across the wooden surface of the counter, follows the grain of the wood until it circles back in on itself. Her father bustles by her, speaking rapidly with a client who had come in earlier demanding an expedited shipment of antitoxin, something Mina was more than happy to pass on to her father. She didn’t like dealing with guildmasters, not when there was so much room for error and so much to lose. She had summoned her father to assist Guildmaster Park with an almost overt eagerness.

There’s a weight in her pocket, several vials of her mint pain potion that she once again found herself unable to use. Nayeon had been grateful, yes, had even left Mina with an offer that she should’ve immediately rejected but instead had spent the last two weeks mulling over. Nayeon hadn’t even started her guild yet, and was currently working as a freelance hunter in an effort to gain some sort of reputation before declaring the start of a new guild. From Mina’s memory, it had been several decades since the last time a new guild had been declared and lasted longer than two years.

Nayeon had been so confident, though, so self-assured even though she was clearly running on fumes. It had drawn Mina in like a moth to a flame, but Mina was aware enough to recognize the danger. She’s expected to follow in her father’s footsteps, learn to make potions the way he made them, gather the same ingredients he had been gathering for years, barter with guildmasters for contracts and supply agreements. To step out from underneath her father’s guidance into uncertain and almost doomed-to-fail waters would likely be the greatest mistake of her life.

Nayeon is a risk, and Mina has always been risk averse.

She’s broken out of her morose musings by the tinkling of the shop bell, and she plasters on her best smile to greet the new customers. “Hello, welcome to—” Mina falters, pulling up short when she gets a look at the latest arrivals.

Nayeon is a lot prettier when not drenched in blood. That’s the first thing Mina thinks. Her hair is sleek and shiny, falling unchecked over her shoulders, and her smile is a bit more sane looking this time around. She’s wearing a simple outfit: dark blue cloth pants and a light grey cotton shirt that Mina’s quite sure she saw in the window of the Chous’ last week. The only thing about her that hints at the woman Mina first saw is the belt slung around her hips, which holds several pouches and a holstered mace.

Nayeon all but skips up to the counter, the person coming with her moving at a much more measured pace. “Mina,” Nayeon exclaims, clapping her hands together. “Long time no see! I wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Yoo Jeongyeon!”

The second thing Mina thinks is that Yoo Jeongyeon has a dangerous face. It’s all planes and angles highlighting scowling lips and stern eyes that Mina both wants to run from and run towards. She settles for standing frozen in place instead. Jeongyeon’s hair is blonde and short, and when combined with the dark leather armor Jeongyeon is wearing, produces an effect that Mina can only childishly describe as cool.

“Hello.” Jeongyeon gives Mina a short bow before moving to stand slightly behind Nayeon’s left shoulder. She seems to relax slightly once settled, and Mina wonders if Jeongyeon is like her, more comfortable when working from someone else’s shadow. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Myoui. Thank you for helping Nayeon out.”

Mina is partway through a stuttered—she really needs to get a grip— “It was nothing” when Nayeon interrupts with a roll of her eyes so sharp it could cut glass.

“What did I tell you about being so formal?”

Jeongyeon’s face twitches, something like annoyance flashing across it before stoicism takes over once more. Mina can just imagine the hands tucked behind her back twisting themselves into knots. “And what did I tell you about the importance of public image?”

Nayeon waves her hand, almost smacking Jeongyeon in the face. Mina rolls her lips together to prevent a giggle from slipping out. “Mina saw me when I was covered in blood and cuts and half out of my mind from losing said blood. I have no image.”

Jeongyeon says nothing, only grumbles wordlessly. Her eyes settle on the back of Nayeon’s head, clearly waiting for her to do something.

Mina finds herself relaxing, just a little bit. Despite the strangeness of their first meeting, Nayeon has been nothing but kind to her, even acknowledging Mina’s talents in a way no one before her had.

“I brought Jeongyeon with me because she thinks that I was hallucinating the mint taste due to head injuries and blood loss.”

Jeongyeon scoffs. “And did you or did you not have a concussion that left you bedridden for two days?”

“Only because we couldn’t afford a better slate of healing. Someone spent the money we made from the bounty on weaponry instead of making sure I wasn’t dead.”

Jeongyeon bristles, shoulders heaving as if she’s about to tackle Nayeon to the floor, but then she deflates, hard gaze melting. Her hand gently comes to rest on Nayeon’s shoulder, fingers curling at the seam of Nayeon’s shirt and catching the cloth there. “I didn’t know how badly you had been injured. You didn’t tell me that you had taken a blow to the head as well. I never would’ve—”

Nayeon half-turns, and Mina is almost grateful that her hair hides her expression from Mina’s eyes. The tone of Nayeon’s voice is soft and soothing, and it feels far too intimate for the eyes of a stranger. “I know, Jeong. You did exactly what I told you to do. It’s my fault for being reckless.” Mina swallows down the strange feeling in her throat, ignores the twinge in her chest when Jeongyeon just shakes her head and pushes at Nayeon’s chin to get her to turn around, an undeniably fond, “Idiot,” her only verbal response.

Mina feels as she often does: a step out of place with those around her, like a wilting rose in a beautifully blooming garden. She reaches for the vials in her pocket, lets herself be calmed by the smooth glass underneath her fingertips. The bottles clink, and Nayeon’s attention is back on her once more.

Something must show on her face, because Nayeon finally, finally gets to the point. “I want to have Jeongyeon try your potion. Do you have any more?”

Mina nods, withdraws the two vials with a thankfully steady hand. “I do.”

Nayeon smiles, picks up one of the vials and hands it to Jeongyeon. “Here.”

Jeongyeon accepts it with clear reluctance, holding the bottle up to the sunlight. The red liquid swirls and swirls, and Mina knows Jeongyeon will find no signs of any defect she may be looking for. Her work is perfect.

“Okay.” Jeongyeon uncorks the bottle. “One problem, though. I’m not currently in pain.” She shoots Nayeon a smirk. “Unlike someone here, I was able to avoid the—fuck!”

“Tsk, tsk, Yoo Jeongyeon,” Nayeon says, shaking her head in mock disappointment as she lifts her heel off of Jeongyeon’s foot. “What about our public image?”

Jeongyeon works her jaw, pursing her lips and looking like she’d want nothing more than to return the favor. Thankfully, she settles for a glare strong enough to petrify and downs the potion. The reaction is instantaneous.

Jeongyeon’s eyes widen, jaw dropping. She looks down at the now empty vial, further down to her foot, and then back up to meet Mina’s eyes. “Holy harpies.” Her voice is wondrous, and Mina feels it again: that swelling pride. She stands a little straighter, holds her chin up a little higher. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches Nayeon’s grin. “You—this—” Jeongyeon laughs, shakes her head. “This is incredible. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Nayeon was right.”

“Hey!”

Mina is 19 years and two weeks old when she meets Yoo Jeongyeon; but, more importantly, she is 19 years and two weeks old when she meets the force that is Nayeon-and-Jeongyeon.

  
The 19th year of her life ends up being her strangest to date. She doesn’t do anything different of her own will. She still assists with the brewing as her father instructs, still minds the shop and greets the customers.

What does happen, though, is that Nayeon and Jeongyeon become a consistent presence in her life. At the end of every week, one or both of them would show up, sometimes bearing injuries and sometimes looking pristine. Some days, they ask for Mina’s pain potions. Some days, Jeongyeon all but slinks up to the counter, engaging Mina in small talk about the weather or the latest guild numbers as she slips Mina a small pouch, containing ingredients from their latest hunt.

It’s strange in its simplicity. They never ask anything of her other than to pay her for her work. They never ask how or why she does what she does, only accept her creations with a never faltering respect and delight in their eyes. She makes the most of it; she takes the griffin feathers and basilisk egg and all the claws and eyes Jeongyeon gives her and experiments as far as her imagination and wit can take her.

They place no expectations. There’s no disappointment or regret when Mina pulls out only the pain potion time and again, and there is nothing but excitement when she pulls out a vial of a different color, explains that she’s been working on a more refined reflex-enhancement potion. Nayeon’s hands wrap around hers, not to take the new concoction from her, but just to be closer, to better express her joy.

Jeongyeon claps a hand on her shoulder, grins until her eyes begin to disappear into the curve of her cheeks.

Mina is happy, and with every smile from these two strangers who had stumbled so gracelessly into her life, she finds that the weight of her father’s words means less and less.

A week before her 20th birthday, Jeongyeon comes into the shop, a familiar dark cloak draped around her shoulders. Mina smiles at the sight of her friend, raising an eyebrow when Jeongyeon slides her a piece of paper.

“Look.” Jeongyeon gestures with her chin.

It takes Mina a moment to parse what she’s seeing, picking up the paper to bring it closer. A sketch of a flowering vine wrapped around a blade. It’s a guild crest.

“I’m the sword,” Jeongyeon says, after a moment. Her voice is halting, awkward in a way Mina hasn’t heard in months. “Nayeon is the flowers.” Another pause that Mina just smiles into. Of course.

Jeongyeon wrings her hands together, clears her throat. “We’ll be officially opening next month. The Im Hunter’s Guild. We want you to be our first official hire. The guild’s Head Potioneer.”

Mina’s heart stutters to a stop, her jaw dropping. She knew that they were still planning to open up a guild, and had heard their ceaseless chatter over the last year, but there had been no further mention of Nayeon’s initial ‘job offer’. “I—” Her voice cuts itself off with a squeak, vocal cords paralyzed with the weight of what she’s being asked.

Jeongyeon gives her a small smile, tinged with sympathy. One of her hands cards through her hair. “Look, I know it’s kind of a crazy thing to ask, and I know you’ve been working with your father your entire life. But…” Jeongyeon trails off. “But Nayeon is relentless, Mina. You can never tell her I said this to you, but she’s going to do great things.” Jeongyeon laughs to herself. “I’m just the muscle; Nayeon has everything else in spades. You’d be in good hands.” She rests her palm on the countertop, scars and still-healing scratches decorating her skin. “We’d take care of each other, make it work. You’re brilliant, and you deserve the freedom to be brilliant. No more midnight brews.”

Mina smiles because she can think of no more appropriate response, and when she is but 12 hours into 20, she tells her father that she’s decided to strike out on her own, join a new guild. He lets her go without much of a fuss, the look in his eyes telling her that he expects her to come back to him in a week, begging for her old spot back.

She gathers her things quickly and efficiently, taking only what she needs. She walks across town in long, even strides, following the directions Jeongyeon had given a week earlier. When she comes upon the place Jeongyeon had described, she considers for a moment whether she had gotten it wrong. It looks like any other house along the block, slightly rundown and tired, but then she sees a pencil sketch of a very familiar seal above the door and knows she has found it.

She knocks. Once. Twice. A third time. Her fourth nervous knock is cut short by the door swinging open, Nayeon’s face the picture of surprise and excitement.

“Mina’s here,” Nayeon shouts. “Two weeks early to boot!”

For a moment, there is silence, and then Mina hears the unmistakable sound of feet thundering down the stairs accompanied by a wordless cheer.

Jeongyeon stumbles to a stop in front of the door, bracing herself on Nayeon’s shoulder. She speaks, breathless, and Mina feels warmed from the inside out. “Welcome home, Mina.”

The next time she sees her father, it is with a title to her name and a guild crest stitched into her clothing.

  
She’s 25 when Jeongyeon leaves.

Mina has learned Jeongyeon over the last five years, understands her mannerisms and quirks with an ease that she eventually recognizes as true friendship.

There's been many a stressful situation over the years, many a tense night spent at the dinner table as Nayeon and Jeongyeon stab into the food on their plates with aggression so thinly veiled they might as well be screaming. There's been delight as well, celebrations of Mina's new creations, of Jeongyeon's solo hunts, of Nayeon managing to convince hunters to leave their existing guild and join theirs instead.

They grow, slowly and then all at once. Nayeon makes a splash, as is her nature, and no one can truly look away. She isn't the youngest guildmaster in history—that honor now belongs to Park Jihyo—but she is perhaps the boldest.

They are happy yet tired, stressed yet successful.

She isn't there for the exact event that precipitates Jeongyeon's departure, but she is there for the end result. She had been out walking the fields, hoping to get a last handful of white lily petals before the seasons shift.

She walks through the door, basket full of her bounty, when a streak of red in the entry hall draws her up short. It isn’t paint from one of their new apprentice’s wayward art projects, nor is it a smear of crushed berries from a clumsy cook. She follows the trail, fingers twisting tighter around her basket when she realizes it leads to Nayeon’s room. It wouldn’t be the first time the other woman had dragged herself home, still bleeding, and thrown herself into bed, but it doesn’t make Mina any less nervous.

The door is slightly ajar, and Mina goes to push it open, but she stops short when she hears Jeongyeon speak. It immediately becomes clear that she’d almost just walked into the middle of something.

“You almost died, Nayeon! She used me to get close to you and tried to kill you.”

Mina stops breathing.

“That isn’t your fault! And I’m fine. It’s just a scratch. She missed.” Even through a barely-there crack in the door, the false flippancy in Nayeon’s voice is obvious.

“She missed because I severed her spinal cord. If I had missed… Nayeon.”

“If you’re so afraid of losing me, then why are you talking about leaving? I’m here, Jeongyeon. I’m fine. So we have one of our scouts stalk your next lover for a week or two. It’s not a reason to leave! You—”

“I don’t think I’m happy anymore.”

Silence. Mina can hear only the sound of her heartbeat.

“This guild. Everything we’ve built. It’s the dream we’ve been working towards since we were kids, Nayeon, but it was always more your dream than mine. I need to figure out what I want.”

Nayeon speaks, says something so softly that Mina hears only the way it disturbs the heavy silence. Something thuds onto the floor. Mina fights back the instinct to rush into the room. Instead, she stretches her neck a little further.

Jeongyeon is on her knees, hands covering Nayeon’s like a thin layer of ice on a barely frozen pond. Nayeon sits on the bed, head low, and Mina can see that she is the source of the blood. There is a trail of it, sluggish and bright crimson, trailing down her arm. Mina follows the trail, winding, until she sees its genesis: a hooked cut that curls around the front of her neck. It’s shaped like a comma—a pause that so easily could have been the end.

“Nayeon,” Jeongyeon murmurs, leaning closer, squeezing harder. The ice cracks, falls to the floor. “Nayeon.” A gentle plea for understanding. “You’ve never held me back. I wanted this, but I see the way your eyes light up when you talk about the guild. I want something that makes my eyes spark.” Jeongyeon lets out an empty laugh. “Something that doesn’t try to kill my dearest friend.”

Nayeon shakes her head, sniffling. Her hair hangs over her eyes, and Mina is thankful for it. It saves her some of the inevitable guilt, not being able to see whatever look must be twisting Nayeon’s features. “I’m just the vine with flowers,” Nayeon forces out, laughing at the weakness in her voice. “I’m just—I’m just...” Nayeon’s words fade into the silence between them.

“Nayeon.” A reassurance. “Flowers have thorns. Vines leak poison. You’ve never in your life been just anything. Don’t start now.” Jeongyeon inches closer. “I’ve personally trained all of our hunters. I know what they’re capable of. You don’t need me here, and it’s not like I’d be gone forever. Just for a bit. To figure myself out.”

A sharp shake of Nayeon’s head wrenches a sob from her lips, and Jeongyeon moves again, standing up and pulling Nayeon into an embrace.

Mina closes her eyes and turns away. This moment isn’t for her.

Jeongyeon doesn’t leave the next day, or the one after that, but the two months that follow involve Mina walking into too many whispered and aborted conversations to count. Until one cool fall evening, when they don’t stop talking as Mina walks in. Jeongyeon only offers her a soft and steady smile and begins to speak, explaining that she’s taking a sabbatical of sorts. Nayeon smiles and fondly rolls her eyes, and Mina knows that they’ll be alright.

  
Mina is 27 the first time she hears of Minatozaki Sana.

“Apparently she’s quite talented,” Nayeon sighs, sinking into the couch. “Her potions don’t taste like mint, though, so Park’s bragging is useless.”

Mina takes a seat across from Nayeon, welcoming the warmth of the fire roaring away in the hearth. “Even if she had figured out the mint,” Mina begins, small smile on her lips, “the bragging would still be useless.”

Nayeon raises an eyebrow. “Well, well. Is that cockiness I hear from Head Potioneer Myoui? Never thought I’d see the day! What happened to the timid girl who couldn’t even look at me?”

“You became much easier to look at when you weren’t covered in blood, and there’s nothing wrong with being sure of myself. I’ve looked at potions from all the guilds with in-house potioneers; they’re all boring, even the ones from the masters.” Mina almost feels silly making statements like this, but she knows it’s true. She’s learned a lot over the years, about herself and those around her.

Nayeon laughs, works her hair out of its ponytail. “Fair point. You’ll probably see her at one of the summits sooner or later. Jihyo was so goddamn pleased to announce her new hire at the guild meeting.” She sighs, dropping her head down onto the couch and letting her hand drop to skim the carpet. “Her name is Minatozaki Sana. I’m pretty sure she and Jihyo grew up together.”

“A guildmaster working with her childhood best friend? How trite.”

Nayeon snorts out a laugh, tossing one of the throw pillows in Mina’s direction. It falls several feet short, prompting Mina to let out a laugh of her own. “I’m a bit of a trendsetter, what can I say?”

Mina says nothing, just smiles and shakes her head. She mirrors Nayeon’s position, grabbing the fallen pillow from the floor and using it to prop her head against the arm of the couch. Her eyes aimlessly trail over a room she knows as well as her own lab.

Nayeon’s study is one of her favorite places, the simple decor and well-loved furniture adding an air of home that Mina seldom feels elsewhere. It serves as a stark contrast to Nayeon’s office, with its grandiose paintings and trophies scattered about the walls and furniture. Here, Mina can run her fingers over a blanket she had knitted for Nayeon three years ago as a birthday present, listen to the crackles and snaps of the fireplace she had watched be installed.

She fights back a sleepy smile when she notices that Nayeon’s eyes have begun to slip shut, a clear sign that she’s just about ready to let firesong lull her to sleep. Mina knows she should rouse Nayeon and demand that she get a proper night’s rest, but the stress of the day weighs heavily on her own eyelids, and she finds it difficult to keep them open. While Nayeon had spent the day discussing guild matters, Mina had been visiting various suppliers, negotiating trade agreements to get what she needed for the next quarter. Their continued climb to the top means that she can no longer gather everything herself, and haggling always drains her.

The room begins to blur around the edges, darkness creeping in until Mina can no longer fight off the call of sleep.

“Did you read Jeongyeon’s letter for you?” Nayeon’s voice, weighted down with sleep, manages to penetrate her fogged mind.

Mina makes a noise that she hopes Nayeon can successfully interpret as a _No_. She had wanted to, but she had a feeling her mind would wander halfway through the letter if she did.

“She’s coming to visit soon. Probably within the month.”

Mina hums, shifting on the couch. “Is she happy?”

“She is.” Nayeon’s smile is audible. “She still hasn’t taken any contracts to get by. She’s been a farmhand for the last two months. Your letter probably has a few paragraphs about it. Let me know if she goes on about this one cow she’s befriended. I’d like to know if she’s just pulling my leg or not. I find it hard to believe that a cow…”

Nayeon’s words fade into a soothing murmur, and the next time Mina becomes aware of her surroundings, she finds herself covered by a quilt, sunlight peeking through the windows.

  
Mina doesn’t hear anymore about Minatozaki Sana over the next several weeks, doesn’t see anyone new at the summits over the next year. It’s all too easy to forget about her, so Mina does.

Until she has no choice, of course.


	2. Chapter 2

When Mina is 29, she decides that Minatozaki Sana is a menace.

“Mina.” A gentle hand touches her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I—” Mina swallows, curls her hand tighter around the vial in front of her. “Are you sure you got this from one of Guildmaster Park’s people?”

“One hundred percent positive,” Chaeyoung insists. “I bumped into a couple of her hunters in the market, and one of them dropped this. I would’ve returned it, but he kind of looked like an asshole, so…” Chaeyoung shrugs, and in any other situation, Mina would find the flippancy charming.

But now.

She raises the vial higher, wafts its fumes towards her nose. It smells all too familiar, but the earthen base note is just a touch too strong to be one of her own. She raises it to her lips and takes a sip, letting the liquid pool on her tongue before swallowing.

Mint.

She corks the vial and spins it upside down, glaring at the initials pressed into one of the corners. MS. Mina continues her observation, moving the vial up and playing with it in the light, watching the way it trembles and swirls. It’s almost a perfect match for her own work, and she knows that the difference would be impossible for most to perceive.

Irritation crashes through Mina, starting low in her gut and spilling outward until her knuckles turn white around the vial. She’s made dozens of changes to potion brewing canon at this point in her career, but none of them hold the same place in her heart as her very first creation. Some of her changes have been published, deemed crucial enough that they should be shared with all brewers who wished to use them, but several of her modifications have been kept close to the vest. Nayeon likes having the upper hand, and Mina likes keeping certain precious things to herself.

Which meant that Minatozaki Sana had reverse engineered her flavor modification, and she had almost gotten it perfectly right. Reverse engineering another potioneer’s work isn't illegal, nor is it that unusual, but this secret is hers.

“It tastes like dirt,” Mina spits, all but shoving the vial back into Chaeyoung’s hands. “You taste it, don’t you?”

“Ah, w-well…” Mina watches Chaeyoung’s ears turn red, and she knows the other woman is trying to figure out the best way to deliver her truth. “Not really. I don’t know if I could tell the difference if I was asked.”

Mina sighs, drops her head into her hands. “Why couldn’t you lie just this once?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“Not the point!” Mina spins around and begins pacing. “The point is that there are a dozen other potions she could’ve tried to figure out, but she went for the very first thing I ever did. Why? I know she couldn’t have done it easily! What potioneer would waste resources and countless hours on trying to make things taste like mint? Who cares!” She flings her arms out, just missing knocking over the several vials of silver flakes Chaeyoung had brought her. “Guildmaster Park is strict, and I know she wouldn’t have assigned Minatozaki this task specifically. This is personal. It has to be. She knows that once she takes over as head potioneer, I’ll be her main competition. She’s firing shots early. The nerve.”

Mina spins around on her heel to look at Chaeyoung, immediately deflating when she sees how wide the other woman’s eyes are.

“Well—”

“I’m sorry, Chaeyoung.” Mina slumps against her desk. “This isn’t why you came here.”

“Technically, no. But! I could see if I could design some sort of rune array that would neutralize one of the ingredients she’d need to use. Set it up in one of the nearby fields, and then anytime she tries to pick mint: BAM! It turns into a pile of ash.” Chaeyoung’s words are accompanied by an over-exaggerated pantomime of an explosion that Mina can’t help but laugh at. Chaeyoung grins in response.

“Thank you.”

“Anything for my favorite potioneer! But seriously, Mina, I doubt Sana is actually challenging you. It’s likely she just became curious and started fiddling around. You were young when you first figured this out. It probably wouldn’t take a more experienced person nearly as long.”

Mina likes Chaeyoung, truly. She likes the artisan’s flair for thinking outside the box, and in turn, Chaeyoung is always willing to listen to her more outlandish proposals. Over the four years Chaeyoung has been here, Mina has roped her into being a consistent chess partner, and in exchange, Chaeyoung has insisted that Mina accompany Chaeyoung on some of her resource gathering missions. All-in-all, she’s a friend, a good one, and Mina is thankful Nayeon had decided to take a chance on someone whose most recent work experience had been two months on the prison’s cleaning crew after getting caught vandalizing a statue of the emperor.

Mina likes Chaeyoung, but she sometimes wishes she wasn’t so earnest and straightforward. She knows Chaeyoung doesn’t understand the fire in her chest, the unflappable knowledge in her mind of what this is. It may not make sense to Chaeyoung, but it’s the only thing that makes sense to Mina.

There’s really nothing to be done about it now, though. She’s about ninety percent sure that Nayeon would join her in storming the Setting Sun Hunter’s Guild if asked, but she’s well aware that it would be a bit of an exaggerated response to something like this, no matter how it burns at her.

Instead, she lies. “You’re probably right, Chaeng.” Mina sends her a terse smile. “Nothing to get all turned around about. Now what was it you wanted me to do with these?”

Chaeyoung perks up instantly. “Oh, right! So I was thinking I may have better luck directing the energy of the moon through my runes if I used silver inlays, but it’s too inert to react to the runestone itself. Have you worked much with moon magic?”

The grin that comes to Mina’s face is sharp and genuine, and, in an instant, all thoughts of Minatozaki Sana and her bastard potions slip from her mind. “You’ve come to the right place.”

Mina is 29 years and one summer old, and she is currently doing her best not to throw an elbow into Jeongyeon’s gut.

“Come on, Myoui,” Jeongyeon needles. Mina feels hands nudge against the small of her back. “You’re going to do great. All you need to do is walk across this excessively big room and go into the smaller yet still probably excessively big room in the back. You’ll brew a potion you’ve brewed at least 500 times, and then we’ll go get drunk and make fun of Nayeon for being a lightweight when she has her third glass of wine and starts calling us Mimi and Jeongie.”

Mina rolls her eyes and drops her entire weight behind her, not surprised when Jeongyeon catches her against her own body with a huff and a muttered _brat_. “It’s not that simple. This is my mastery, Jeongyeon. I’ll be a potions master not just in title but in certification as well. I can’t mess this up.”

The arms wrapped around her waist raise up to spin her around, bringing her face-to-face with her current tormentor. It’s funny how similar Jeongyeon looks to how she did all those years ago in her father’s shop, dark hooded cloak obscuring most of her face and serious set to her mouth. The intimidation factor is much lower than it was back then, tempered by years of familiarity and the knowledge that Jeongyeon is all bark and no bite.

“Technically,” Jeongyeon begins, “you can mess this up because they give the test every 3 years. The only reason you haven’t taken it sooner is because of that nonsense 10-year work experience rule, and even then we still had to count your time helping Nayeon and I before you joined.”

Mina just raises an eyebrow, trying to convey just how much Jeongyeon’s repeated assurances fail to temper the storm swirling in her stomach. She knows all of this. It doesn’t stop her from feeling like she’s going to vomit. She wants to believe Jeongyeon, wants to lean into the warmth and comfort her words try to offer, but she can’t. She knows what’s at stake.

Either she leaves today the youngest certified potions master in the last two centuries, or she leaves a failure. There’s no middle ground.

Jeongyeon sighs. “Mina, who is the most well-traveled and knowledgeable retired hunter you know?” Perhaps catching the glint in Mina’s eye, Jeongyeon hurries to keep speaking. “Yes, exactly. It’s me. I’ve been to a lot of places the last four or five years, and I’ve met a lot of people and done a lot of things.” Jeongyeon’s hands grow heavier on Mina’s shoulders as she speaks. “I met people who brewed—used what I learned from you over the years to have some discussions even—and good gods, Mina... Very few of them seemed to understand potion making like you do. You’re not just good, you’re excellent. Nayeon is out of her mind on her best days, but I’ll be damned if she doesn’t have an eye for talent.”

Mina swallows down the emotion Jeongyeon’s palpable pride evokes and lets her eyes drop to the floor. She tries one last time to grapple with the rapid beating of her heart, the way it feels like her chest is slowly being stretched open. “You know, it is possible to compliment Nayeon without also insulting her.”

It doesn’t work. Her voice is too high, too thready, and Jeongyeon pulls her into a proper hug without another word. Mina’s head falls to her shoulder, eyes pressed tight against Jeongyeon’s cloak in an effort to stem nervous tears.

“You’ll be alright,” Jeongyeon says. “Even if you fail, even if you go in there and blow up that room and leave everyone bald and covered in soot, you’ll be alright.” Mina moves with Jeongyeon’s shrug. “Well, maybe after a few minty healing potions, but you’ll be alright.”

Mina’s hands find purchase in Jeongyeon’s cloak, pulling it closer to her as if she could disappear within it. Words eventually work their way out of her throat. “Everyone thinks I’m going to pass. I don’t know if I could face them all if I failed.”

“You could. Do you want to know what would happen if you failed? We’d still go get drunk, and we’d still make fun of Nayeon, and then we’d go home. At the end of the day, no matter what happens here, you’ll get to go home, Mina. Okay?”

Mina takes a deep, shuddering breath, then another. She tucks her face even tighter against Jeongyeon’s shoulder. The pressure in her chest ebbs just enough for her to see the truth in Jeongyeon’s words. It doesn’t fix her sudden panic, but it seems far more manageable than it did a moment ago.

Mina isn’t sure how long they stand there before Jeongyeon speaks again, but she can’t imagine she has more than five minutes before she has to be in the examination room. “If we stay much longer, Nayeon will find us, and you know she’s only going to tell you what I told you, but louder.”

Mina chuckles, pressing her eyes to Jeongyeon’s cloak one last time to dry the tears that had slipped out. She steps back, breaking the embrace. “Well maybe that’s the energy I need.”

Jeongyeon scoffs, but it immediately settles into a small smile. “You’re going to succeed, and if they fail you, I’ll just assassinate them all.”

“Coming out of retirement for a failed potions mastery? That would be quite the surprise.” Mina wipes at her eyes one last time and begins patting down her pockets, making sure she has everything she needs. They had allowed her to bring one notebook and two non-standard ingredients of her choosing. Losing either of those would start her off terribly.

“Eh, I’m coming back in a season or two anyways. Might as well make it for something a bit outside the box.”

Mina freezes, vial of pufferfish eyes almost slipping from her grasp. “You’re what?”

Jeongyeon tilts her head. “Did you not read my most recent letter? I’m here to visit for a fortnight, and then I’ll be spending time with my family. I’ll be back after that.”

“I—” Mina tries not to duck her head, embarrassment battling with a rush of excitement. She had in fact not read Jeongyeon’s latest letter, intending to save it as a reward for finishing her review for her mastery exam. She had overlooked the fact that she would never truly feel prepared and consequently would leave Jeongyeon’s letter unread, nestled between vials of dragon’s blood and wraith essence. “That’s wonderful, Jeongyeon. I’m really glad you decided to come back.” Mina smiles. “I’ve missed you.”

“Ah, I’ve missed you too.” Jeongyeon smiles, stuffs her hands in the pocket of her cloak. “There was never going to be any other outcome, really. I simply needed some time. Now, enough about that. Get going before they mark you late. Nayeon and I will be waiting for you when you’re done.”

Mina straightens to her full height, taking a deep breath and sending Jeongyeon a shaky smile before she pivots on her heel and begins crossing the atrium.

The distance between her and the examination room seems massive, only highlighted by the various pockets of people scattered about. Mina knows that some potioneers teach after the summit concludes, but she’s never been too invested in the idea of teaching. She does a brief scan of the room, making note of faces new and old. She recognizes most of the crowd, but there are about half a dozen new faces. She figures most of them are assistants to various guild’s head potioneers and potions masters.

Mina runs a hand through her hair, sighing to herself as she tries to push the last of her nerves away. It’s easy enough to put on a practiced mask of confidence while walking through this crowd, but that doesn’t—

An explosion has her flinching, but she gains her bearings and quickly pinpoints the source. There, standing about twenty feet away from her is a woman whose features Mina can’t quite make out due to the copious amounts of orange goo covering her face. Four people—they must be her students based on how young they look—stand around her in similar states of slimy orange. One glance down at the ingredients tells Mina that she’s witnessing a firebreathing potion gone awry.

Powdered newt’s eye instead of sliced. Increased surface area leads to increased reactions. Increased reactions before the stabilizing agent of bean paste is added means the potion congeals and then combusts.

Mina spares a quick glance towards the examination room and then makes her way over to the wayward showing, grabbing a cloth from one of the tables she passes. “Here,” she says, offering the cloth to the woman she presumes is in charge. It seems she got the worst of it. “Are all of you alright?”

The students nod, muttering their thanks for her help. Mina can’t help but notice the way their eyes dart to the crest stitched on her shirt, and she wishes she had possessed the foresight to cover it. The students’ clothes are unmarked, and the goo obscures all but the most obvious details about the woman in front of her, so she has no idea which guild she might be dealing with.

The woman takes her cloth with a small laugh, and Mina is struck with the desire to be able to see her face. “I was better before making such a simple mistake, but yes. Thank you.”

Mina nods. “Of course. If you’re looking for additional newts to replace this, there’s quite the active colony on the outskirts of the city, about a mile past the mausoleum. Good for lavender as well.”

“Lavender? Any reason why?” One of the students speaks up and then immediately looks like they regret it. “Sorry, Potioneer My—”

Mina offers what she hopes is a reassuring smile as she cuts the student off. Life was easier when people didn't recognize her. “They like the smell, believe it or not. It’s theorized that it—”

“Helps them sleep at night.” The other woman finishes, smile showing more clearly now that she’s wiped her face down a bit. “Thank you for the tip, Potioneer Myoui. I’ll make note of it. I should introduce myself. I’m—”

The examination bell rings out in that moment, and Mina’s anxiety comes rushing back in. She cuts the woman off with an “Excuse me”, and then she walks as quickly as she can to the room without appearing to be running.

It’s almost infuriating how well the rest of the day matches Jeongyeon’s prediction, all the way down to Nayeon’s alcohol tolerance and ridiculous pet names.

  
Three weeks into this whole being-the-youngest-Potions-Master-in-the-last-two-centuries thing, Mina begins to wonder if the title is somehow cursed. She hadn’t really thought all that much would change after she had passed her exam. She now has access to the Potioncrafting Guild’s more advanced stock and a light blue vial stitched on to all of her guild crests, but that was really the limit of the expected changes.

She had not been prepared to have difficulty acquiring one of the most rudimentary ingredients. She’d been coming to this hill to find newts for the last half-decade now, and never before had she had such a streak of bad luck. She knows the colony is still in the area. She sees the tracks and droppings that indicate their presence, but she fails to actually see the newts themselves.

It’s as if someone is getting here before her and scaring them all away. But, as she kneels in a patch of dirt, pants quickly dampening against the soil, she can’t imagine why someone would be coming so frequently as to have thwarted Mina every day for the last two weeks.

It’s infuriating, and it makes absolutely no sense. Mina licks her lips, rocking back on her heels and straightening up. It’s possible that someone had somehow decided to randomly start coming here right before she did, but she couldn’t imagine who—

“Potions Master Myoui!”

Mina whirls around, unable to stop herself from stumbling backwards when she sees how close this yelling stranger is to her. An arm reaches out to steady her, but Mina manages to smoothly step out of the way while regaining her footing. She coughs into her fist, giving herself one last moment to compose herself before addressing the person before her.

She looks up, and her mind stutters. A small part of Mina’s brain registers that this woman looks vaguely familiar, but a larger and much more embarrassing part of her is taken by how strikingly pretty she is. Mina works around pretty women every day of her life, encounters them at trading stalls, on walking paths throughout town, at her own dinner table even. There is absolutely no reason that this random woman should be—

The woman’s grin slips into something softer. A breeze rustles her short brown hair, and all Mina can smell is lavender.

“—wanting to thank you for your help back there. I haven’t made a mistake that basic in ages. Powdered newt’s eye, ridiculous.” She laughs softly, and it’s only when her brow begins to furrow that Mina realizes she’s been standing and staring for the last 30 seconds.

“I’m sorry,” she says, fighting the urge to fidget with her fingers. She really hadn’t gotten any details of this woman’s features through the goo. “I didn’t recognize you, and you took me by surprise.”

“Yes, I suppose I do look a bit different when I’m not a wreck.” It’s then that Mina notices the pail dangling from the not-stranger’s hand, and her shifted gaze doesn’t go unnoticed. “Oh!” She lifts the bucket up with a smile that Mina would almost call sheepish. “I’ve been coming here ever since you gave me that tip to gather newts. You can never have enough, right?”

“You…” Mina trails off, jaw working to form words. “You’re the one whose been scaring off the newts?”

The other woman’s eyes widen. “Scaring them? Oh!” Her hands fly to cover her mouth, and Mina considers it a small miracle that nothing manages to fly out of the now wildly swinging pail. “I’m so sorry! I really hadn’t considered that. I didn’t even collect them most days. I’d just hang around and enjoy the nice smell.”

“Humans lingering for too long is enough to scare them off for the day,” Mina says, doing her absolute best to not let any annoyance slip through. This woman seems nothing but achingly earnest, and someone who would switch powdered newt’s eye with sliced newt’s eye doesn’t seem the type to be purposely trying to ruin Mina’s day. 

The woman blanches. “Of course. Yes. I am aware of that, but it slipped my mind because—” The toe of a leather shoe digs into the dirt. Mina watches the woman’s fingers tighten around the handle of her bucket. “Well. I really just wanted to meet you, actually. I’ve read a lot of your papers over the years, and I couldn’t really pass up the opportunity to ask some questions that I’ve had.”

All Mina can do is blink. “Questions?”

The stranger nods rapidly. “Oh yes. Your paper on alternative uses of ground ironbark was fascinating, but I was curious as to if you had ever considered augmenting it with echidna quills, aiding in regulating body temperatures for fire-resistance potions. Then, of course, there was that treatise you wrote on stirring materials. I’ve always been partial to wood myself, but you made quite the compelling case for gold. Have you had issues with gold stirring rods when working with more acidic potions? I was attempting to make a poison for Jihyo once and melted half of the rod. Platinum might’ve been better, no?”

Finally, the stranger pauses, and in the space it takes for her to catch her breath, Mina’s entire world screeches to a halt. While the other woman had been speaking, Mina had been logging the questions with a not insignificant mix of nerves and excitement. Usually, when Mina’s work was being questioned it was being done so by older potions masters, men who refused to believe that any way other than their own could be correct. The light in this woman’s eyes was nothing but welcoming.

But all of that vanished the moment she uttered Jihyo’s name. Because that meant one thing and one thing only.

Mina speaks right as the woman opens her mouth, probably about to launch into another round of questions. “Minatozaki Sana.”

“Oh.” The woman blinks once, twice, and then her mouth splits into a disarming grin. “You know who I am! Wow, I didn’t expect that.”

Mina nods stiffly. “You’re Guildmaster Park’s next head potioneer.”

“I am,” Sana says, shoulder straightening. “That’s why I wanted to meet you, actually. I have a lot to learn.”

Mina thinks of potions that taste too earthy. “Right. Well, I apologize, but if the newts aren’t here then I need to be on my way and find them somewhere else.”

She goes to begin her walk somewhere that isn’t here, but Sana steps in her path. “Wait. Can I come with you? Or at least come with you part of the way? I really would love to talk.”

In any other situation, with any other woman asking this question, Mina would say yes. But the memory of that potion burns at her. As does the warm brown of Sana’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Mina says, voice curt. “I really must be going.”

Sana lets her walk away this time, but not before saying one more thing, voice heavy. “I really am sorry about the newts.”

Mina says nothing, only tucks her chin in tighter to her chest and continues to stride back down the hill.

  
Sana doesn’t leave her alone after that.

Not deliberately, of course. No, the type of torture that Minatozaki Sana exacts on Mina is much crueler.

For the next month, Mina can’t stop noticing Sana. Mina sees her in the supply shops, at food stalls, even when taking lakeside walks at dusk.

Sana, once known, is impossible to miss.

Mina hates it, because every time she lays eyes on Sana, she’s reminded of her unceremonious storm out and the guilt that had rushed in the moment Mina had reached the bottom of the hill.

Each time, she tries to grasp at the fury that had so easily filled her years ago, but it slips through her fingers like gold dust. Being annoyed with Sana had been much easier when she was faceless, when Mina didn’t know that her voice rose in pitch when she got excited about asking a question or that she sometimes wore glasses in the market.

Sana is real, and smart, and very pretty, and apparently very very good at never noticing that she and Mina have been in the same place at least a dozen times over the last month. Each time Mina sees Sana, even just a flash of her hair as she turns around the corner, her heart sinks, and the urge to apologize for her rudeness only grows.

She doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that Sana never once glances her way.

By the end of the month, she gives up on trying to summon her dislike towards Sana. The truth is that if she really had tried to remake Mina’s flavoring technique for her own gain, the recipe would’ve hit the mass market by now. If Sana saw her only as a rival, then she wouldn’t have been so eager to ask Mina about her previous works, kind curl to her lips.

Regrettably, Mina’s inner conflict spills over into her work, and it takes only three ruined batches of sleeping draught for Nayeon to call her into her office. It takes everything in Mina to not throw ground iron into Chaeyoung’s eyes at the low “ooooooooo” she lets out when Mina gets the summons.

With an efficiency that has Mina wishing Jeongyeon’s more oblivious self was here to play buffer, Nayeon extracts the entire messy tale from Mina’s reluctant lips. There are eye rolls and sighs as Mina tells the story, but at the end of it all, Nayeon issues her one, simple directive.

“Apologize. Now.”

Mina knows that Nayeon couldn’t give an imp’s ass about the feelings of her rival’s guild members, but she knows that Nayeon knows what Mina knows: the weight in her chest will only get heavier with each passing day.

She gives Nayeon one last imploring glance on her way out of the guild hall, but Nayeon only raises an eyebrow in a way that makes Mina feel like a child getting scolded. With a swallow that feels like sand sliding down her throat, Mina turns on her heel and makes her way to the Setting Sun Hunter’s Guild.

“Oh, hello! We weren’t expecting any visitors today.” The woman that answers Mina’s knock on the door is cheery, black hair in a long braid over her shoulder. The gold border of her guild crest denotes her as someone rather high up. Mina knows what Park Jihyo looks like after all these years, so that leaves only one person this could be.

Kim Dahyun manages to make Mina feel both welcome and uneasy with her wide grin. “How can I help you?”

Mina straightens her shoulders. “I’m looking for Potioneer Minatozaki.” Dahyun’s eyes flit down to her guild crest and narrow slightly. “Not for guild business. It’s a… personal matter. I should’ve introduced myself. I’m Myoui Mina of the Im Hunter’s Guild.”

A chuckle. “Your patch gave you away. Brave of you to come to these parts.” She extends a hand. “Kim Dahyun.” Mina accepts the handshake, not surprised at the firmness that follows. “I’m afraid you’ve missed Sana. Not too sure when she’ll be around again.” Dahyun examines her for a moment. “Mina, was it?”

Mina nods, raising her chin afterward to try and come off calmer than she feels, only to lower it a moment later when she realizes it causes her to look down on Dahyun.

Dahyun sighs. “I don’t know if I’m really supposed to tell you this, but the news will be out by dusk. In short, our potions master passed away this morning.”

Mina’s jaw drops, a gasp slipping out before she can stop herself. “I’m so sorry.”

Dahyun gives a tight-lipped smile. “It’s alright. Certainly wasn’t your fault. I’m telling you so that you can understand that Sana might be otherwise occupied for the near future. Next week you might have an easier time, and—” Dahyun’s eyes dart pointedly to the crest on Mina’s shirt. “—maybe hide the crest next time you swing by?”

“Of course,” Mina says. In her pockets, her hands twist into fists. “Thank you for your help, Dahyun.”

Dahyun nods, already closing the door. “Take care.”

  
With regret, guilt, and anxiety swirling around her stomach in equal measure, Mina lets her feet carry her through the town. She wonders if Potions Master Kang suffered from a prolonged illness, if Sana has been struggling with this for the last several months while Mina had been angry at a fake version of her.

Mina’s never had a proper mentor when it comes to potions, but the thought of Sana losing someone as close to her as Mina is to Nayeon or Jeongyeon makes Mina’s stomach clench and eyes water.

She keeps walking. And walking, until the sun begins to set and she knows Nayeon will begin wondering if Mina has fled town rather than confront her mistakes.

Mina doesn’t stop until she reaches the lake on the outskirts of town. It’s a lovely spot, one she loves to frequent at night, when the flowers along the shore sway in the night wind and everyone has left the lake to prepare for bed.

It’s on her second meandering lap around the lake that she notices a figure sitting at the foot of a tree. The figure is hunched over on themselves, and Mina drifts a bit closer as she passes.

There’s just enough moonlight shining through the clouds for Mina to realize who she’s looking at, and just enough surprise follows for Mina to trip over a rock in front of her. The resulting clatter draws Sana’s attention to her, and they spend several moments staring at each other before the silence is broken.

“Hi,” Sana says, voice thick. “I was hoping you wouldn’t see me.”

“I—sorry for bothering you.” Just like that, the peace Mina had slowly been cultivating dissolves, leaving only the urge to run in its wake.

“Did I say you were?” Sana stands, drawing back the hood of her cloak as she does so. Mina can see the remnants of tears on her cheeks, and she aches to make them go away. “I assumed that if you saw me, you’d immediately flee in the other direction, maybe duck behind a shopkeep.”

Mina flushes at being so openly called out. Her mouth works fruitlessly to formulate a response, but the best she manages is a smile that ends up looking like a grimace.

“I would always see you in the shops, but I figured you didn’t want to speak to me.” Sana continues, sniffling.

“You noticed me?” Mina winces immediately. She blames her lack of tact on too much time spent with Chaeyoung. “Sorry—”

“Of course I did,” Sana cuts in. “How could I not?”

Mina has nothing to say to that, and even less to say to the sudden warmth in Sana’s watery gaze. She lets the question fall between them unanswered, eyes following its path to the ground.

“I’m sorry to hear about what happened,” Mina eventually manages, peeking up at Sana.

Sana chokes out a laugh. “Oh, so you know. He was no mentor to me.” She tips her head back to stem the flow of tears, and Mina’s traitorous mind chimes _pretty_ at the dance of moonlight along her jaw. “Jihyo and I both hated him. She kept him on only out of respect for her father, but he had no interest in helping me with anything. I was self-taught, mostly. I’m just quite stressed about suddenly having to be a guild’s head potioneer five years earlier than planned. I’m still four years away from my mastery.” Sana offers a terse smile. “I cry easily.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve always had an interest in potions, so Jihyo offered me the apprenticeship years ago. He wouldn’t even tell me what longrube was used for the first time I asked. I had to go to the library.” Sana pulls her cloak tighter around herself. She looks small. “I was looking through different books and stumbled upon one of yours. Your first, I think.” Her lips curl into a smirk.

“Oh gods,” Mina groans. “Please don’t tell me—”

“Potions, Poultices, and Practices: Practitioner Myoui’s Guide to Flawless Brewing,” Sana says. “Quite the title.”

“Nayeon made me do it,” Mina grumbles, kicking at a pebble by her foot. “I didn’t even want to put my name on it.”

“Well I’m glad you did,” Sana says. “It, well, it really helped me. I found out what longrube was, and I was reminded of your success.” Sana looks over at her through long lashes. “You inspired me, Potions Master Myoui. I’ve spent countless hours poring over your work, trying to understand potions the way you do. I even cared about the small stuff.” She laughs. Mina tries not to feel unmoored. “I tried to reverse engineer your flavoring of all things. Flavoring! As if that really matters.”

Mina’s legs go numb. “The mint.”

Sana nods. “Everyone at the guild was so happy when I got it to work, but I was never too pleased with it. The taste was off, and only I seemed to notice.”

“Too earthy.”

“Yes!” Sana perks up, the only evidence of her earlier crying the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Did you have a similar issue when starting out?”

“I…” Mina isn’t quite sure what to say, but by now it’s evident that accusing Sana of trying to sabotage her would be nothing short of ridiculous. “I did, but I also tried one of your potions years ago, actually.”

Sana’s eyes widen, and Mina can’t help but feel like she’s about to lose control of this conversation. If she ever had it in the first place. “You did,” Sana exclaims, taking half a step forward. “How did you even come across one? Oh, you must’ve thought I was such a hack, huh?” Sana laughs, pushing a hand through her hair.

“No, I—” Mina falters yet again, unsure of how to explain the last couple years of one-sided animosity. The corner of Sana’s mouth pulls down, and Mina is overcome with the sudden urge to take one of Sana’s hands in her own.

So she does. Sana’s palm is cold. Mina hopes her own isn’t clammy.

Sana’s eyes widen in surprise, and Mina swallows the last of her pride.

“It scared me, actually. I didn’t like that some unknown had come so close to figuring out the very first thing I did on my own.” Mina drops her gaze to the floor, but a squeeze to her hand has her looking back up. “I never liked you, which I’m now thoroughly ashamed to admit. I apologize for that, and I apologize for the fact that I was so rude to you a month ago. I was trying to find you and apologize earlier today, actually.”

“Potions M—”

“Call me Mina.”

“Mina,” Sana murmurs, “you mean to tell me there’s nothing I could’ve done to make a better first impression on you? I was doomed from the start?”

Mina shakes her head. “That’s the thing. I knew I was wrong about you thirty seconds into knowing who you were. I just… needed time to come to terms with it.”

Sana smirks. Mina hates how goddamn attractive it is.

“What? You realized the woman you met while she was covered in orange goo couldn’t be a threat?”

Mina chuckles, shaking her head. “No, not that. It was the questions. I could tell you were passionate about what you talked about.” Mina takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Sana.”

There’s a brief silence before Sana responds. “Buy me lunch tomorrow.”

Mina flinches in shock, her hand trying and failing to slip out of Sana’s grasp. “What?”

“Lunch. Tomorrow.” Sana repeats the word with a smile dancing around her lips, and it takes everything in Mina to maintain her composure. “Make it up to me then.”

“So one lunch cancels out years of one-sided animosity?” Mina raises a brow. “That seems like an easy deal.”

“Then take it.”

There’s a challenge in Sana’s tone, and it tickles something in the back of her mind. Mina shifts her hand so that their palms are touching. “I will,” Mina says, pumping their hands once, twice, until Sana catches on and returns the handshake with a grin.

“Perfect.”

  
“Hi, Potions Master Myoui.”

Mina looks up from the shirt she had been considering, exasperated smile on her lips. “Tzuyu,” she says, reaching out to steady the boxes stacked high in the other woman’s arms, “how many times do I have to tell you to call me Mina?”

Tzuyu looks at her blankly for a moment before speaking. “Potions Master Mina.”

“Tzuyu!” Mina’s scowl melts at the giggle that follows.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tzuyu says, smirking. “It’s just funny how much you guild members hate being called by your formal titles despite spending decades seeking them.”

“It’s different with someone I’ve known for over a decade,” Mina responds, following Tzuyu as she makes her way to the back of the store. “You knew me well before any title.”

Tzuyu takes a moment to set the boxes down before speaking. “True. I guess you aren’t that special.”

“Hey,” Mina whines, barely resisting the urge to stomp her foot. “Let’s not go that far.”

Tzuyu doesn’t turn from the shelves she’s restocking, but Mina sees another smirk crawl across her lips all the same. “What brings you here today?” Tzuyu asks. “You were just in last week for a new apron.”

“I’m meeting a friend.”

Tzuyu hums. “That’s nice. Is it Chaeyoung? If it is, remind her she still owes me for the paints she purchased last week.”

Mina’s brow furrows. “No, it’s not Chaeyoung, but why would she need a tab? Or paint? We—” Mina freezes, remembering red cheeks and murmurs about a ‘cute shopkeep in town’. “Right, of course. I’ll let her know.”

Mercifully, Tzuyu makes nothing of Mina’s spluttering. “Who is it then,” she asks as she places the last jar on the shelf.

“Minatozaki Sana.”

Tzuyu’s eyes widen. “Minatozaki Sana? From Setting Sun?”

Mina nods.

“It’s nice to know that not all of you are that crazy about guild rivalries,” Tzuyu says. “I mentioned Guildmaster Park in front of Guildmaster Im last week and she choked on her drink.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition,” Mina delicately offers, well aware of just how deep that rivalry runs.

Tzuyu just shakes her head. “Where are you meeting?”

“Here, actually,” Mina says.

“Makes sense. I see Potioneer Minatozaki around here quite often during lunch. I—”

“Chou Tzuyu!” Mina jolts at the shout that comes from right behind her. “How many times have I told you to call me Sana?”

Mina catches it this time, the mischievous twinkle in Tzuyu’s eye before she replies. Mina mouths the words along with her. “Potioneer Sana.”

Sana huffs, close enough that her breath breaks on the back of Mina’s neck. Mina turns around, taking a step back to avoid knocking heads with Sana. “Sana.”

“Hi.” Sana’s smile is gentle, and Mina wonders how she had spent so much time thinking ill of the other woman. “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“Oh no.” Mina waves away the concern, gesturing over her shoulder. “Tzuyu kept me company.” She glances behind her only to see that Tzuyu, and her stack of boxes, have disappeared.

Sana’s giggle draws her gaze forward. “She’s a busy woman. Shop to run and all.”

“True,” Mina agrees. “Speaking of busy women, I’m a bit surprised you had the freedom to step away today for lunch. I assumed you’d be busy.”

Sana lets out a sigh, falling in step with Mina as they make their way out of the store. “Jihyo is giving me one more day of freedom before I have to shoulder everything. Our stores are alright right now, but I need to wrap my head around the logistics of it all.” Sana worries her bottom lip between her teeth.

Mina hums in understanding. “I can imagine it’s not easy having to step into a role like this so suddenly.”

“It isn’t,” Sana says, shaking her head. She turns a corner and Mina follows, easily slipping through the crowd to match Sana’s steps. “I expected more times to ask questions.” She laughs sardonically. “I’ve made friends with other potioneers over the years, but none who had to become the guild’s head potioneer, let alone without their mastery.”

Mina hums. “There were a couple of texts I used to get a grasp of things when I started out. I can give you the names,” she offers, following Sana as she ducks into a doorway Mina hadn’t even noticed.

Sana looks over her shoulder and gives Mina a smile. “That would be wonderful, actually.” Sana’s voice gets firm. “But no more shop talk today. Today we relax.”

“Alright,” Mina says. She lets out a laugh as they settle at one of the tables. “Does this mean you don’t want to know my thoughts on using echidna quills with ground ironbark?”

Sana stiffens, and Mina does her best not to grin at the blatant interest. “That depends. What would your answer be?”

“Well,” Mina begins, drawing out her words as she runs her eyes across the tavern. It’s a rather quaint place, full, but not too loud in the way Mina often finds grating. The colors of the place are blues and greens, and Mina loves the abundance of plants inside. It’s a nice change from the taverns Nayeon and Jeongyeon usually drag her to. Of course, though, at the moment her favorite thing about this tavern is her dining companion, who is now looking at her with narrowed eyes. “I would say that the keratin coating could help with fire-resistance, but you would likely have to prepare it a special way.”

“Flattened with a blade?”

Mina smirks. “Well that’s shop-talk, isn’t it?”

Sana huffs. “No shop-talk about my guild responsibilities. Everything else is on the table. If you think you can avoid my questions again, you have quite the surprise waiting for you.”

Mina laughs, unable to resist drawing the teasing out any longer. “I don’t know…those two topics could cross so easily, couldn’t they?”

Sana pouts—honest to gods pouts—and Mina caves immediately.

“Well first you’d want to give it a proper cleansing. Probably in vinegar,” Mina begins. Sana nods in understanding, and what starts then is a whirlwind several hours during which Mina barely notices the food she’s ordered or the taste of it on her tongue. She’s too caught up in Sana’s questions, the way Sana grasps a new topic with vigor and cracks it open for the two of them to explore together. Mina isn’t challenged often, and she can’t help but feel a thrill every time Sana does so.

They do eventually stop talking about potions, and the conversation wanders to more mundane things. Mina likes that she can ask Sana one question and have it lead to 15 minutes of stories about her childhood with Jihyo or latest trip to the clothing shop. Mina drinks up every word from Sana’s lips, effortlessly taken by the brightness she emits.

She likes how obvious it is that she holds Sana’s attention. She likes that Sana seems to understand that Mina doesn’t feel the need to talk often, only to be acknowledged when she does.

One muttered remark about the crotchety old man that holds her guild’s glass vial contract is all it takes for the conversation to turn to Mina’s time as the Im Guild’s potions master, and Mina can’t deny that she’s charmed by how she can see Sana holding back on her questions. She understands the urge; if Mina had known another potions master, she would’ve shown up with a list of questions a meter long.

The words that leave her lips as they make their way out into the late-afternoon are ones that have been building over the course of their lunch. “We should do this again.” She barely registers the shock on Sana’s face, too caught up in the idea that steals over her. “I can help you with questions about being a guild’s potions master, and Nayeon will be happy to see me out of the house more, I’d wager.”

The smile she gives Sana is not returned at first, leaving Mina to study the way Sana’s jaw works soundlessly and the light pink on her cheeks. There’s something that looks like disappointment that settles on Sana’s brow, but it’s gone in a flash as a smile returns to her face. “Really? You would help me?”

“Of course.” Mina nods. “We can have a standing lunch each week to go over things. It’s no trouble, and it’s nice to converse with someone else who has a passion for potions.”

“Alright then,” Sana says, extending a hand for Mina to shake. “It’s a date.”

Mina is proud of the fact that she manages to wrangle her response to that into only a small flinch.

  
“Going out again?”

Nayeon’s words stop her in her tracks. The teasing note to her voice makes Mina’s stomach twist. “I have errands.”

“Errands?” Nayeon takes a step closer, and when Mina turns around, she’s unsurprised to see the other woman smirking. “I’m quite sure that we have everything we need at the moment. Didn’t you just go out on an errand run yesterday?”

Mina steels herself. Under no circumstances can she let Nayeon begin to tease her about this. Ground lost to Im Nayeon is ground all but forever forsaken. “Supply has been inconsistent lately. I haven’t been able to visit all the vendors at once.”

Nayeon steps closer, eyes narrowed. “For the last two months?”

Mina raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to go in my place and try and deal with them? I’m sure Ser Ahn will be happy to see you again.”

Nayeon scowls. “I told that man that I’d gut him if he ever looked at me again, and I meant it.”

“A man charges you extra for ingredients one time. I—”

“It was robbery! Duplicitous thievery! I should’ve challenged him to an honor duel on the spot.”

Mina barely holds back her snort. “You didn’t even know anything was wrong with the price until you got home.”

Nayeon crosses her arms with a huff. “Yes, and then you and Jeongyeon proceeded to make fun of me for getting fleeced.”

“It’s important to learn these things, Nayeon.”

“Jeongyeon called me ‘Numbskull Nayeon’ for two weeks.”

“She—”

“I heard you trying not to laugh!”

Mina breaks out into a grin this time. “It was very funny.”

Nayeon says nothing else, just throws Mina a scowl that Mina knows from experience is hiding a laugh and makes her way up the stairs much louder than she normally does. With a pleased smile, Mina makes her way out the door, lightness to her step at the thought of seeing Sana again.

By now, Mina could admit to herself that she was somewhat caught on the other woman, but that hardly felt like something worth noting. How could one not simply be charmed by everything Minatozaki Sana is? There is a warmth to Sana that Mina knows no amount of reagents could reproduce.

She doesn’t quite know what Sana sees in her, what compels her to take Mina’s hand and draw her into conversation after conversation long after Mina has finished dispensing her advice about handling guild matters.

Mina likes how Sana looks at her, but she’s even more taken with how easily she seems to be able to make Sana smile, the kind that crinkles her eyes and brings the sun down to earth, just for a moment. She likes that Sana listens when she speaks, and she likes even more being able to offer Sana support after a tiring day. 

She cares about Sana, wants her to be happy.

She knows she’ll have to tell Nayeon about where she’s actually going someday soon, but for now she holds the secret close to her chest, where it keeps her warm even as she steps into the cold afternoon.

  
The day Jeongyeon comes back, it rains.

“Maybe if you didn’t refuse to use a head covering, you wouldn’t be shivering right now!”

“Please,” Nayeon manages to scoff through chattering teeth. “Umbrellas are just a waste of a hand.”

Mina sets down her umbrella in the foyer, hanging up her coat and then moving to help Nayeon out of hers. She feels the slightest bit bad when the other woman begins to rub her hands over her arms, but she knows this is an entirely self-made issue. “Guildmaster Park uses an umbrella.”

“Park is a weakling who couldn’t fight her way past a tiger cub with two swords and a sleep bomb.”

Mina says nothing at first, well aware that Nayeon’s ire stems from the fact that this is the fourth quarter in a row that they’ve failed to top the guild rankings. It’s their longest streak of second place in years, and Mina knows that worry lies underneath Nayeon’s frustration. She moves further into the house, knowing a roaring flame would do them both some good. “We have a good crew this month. We’re a week in, and we’ve already had two high-level bounties. I’m stocked on basilisk venom for the rest of the year.”

“I know,” Nayeon sighs, still shivering. “But it’s starting to feel like, no matter what we do, Park is always a step ahead.”

“You know that’s not true.” Mina opens the door to Nayeon’s study, beginning to usher the other woman inside so that she can start a fire. “There’s much we could do to improve our standing. I—” She freezes in place when she realizes that someone has already beaten her to starting a fire, a cloaked individual still crouched over the hearth.

“We need a miracle at this point,” Nayeon scoffs, sweeping right past Mina and into the study. She doesn’t seem to even notice the intruder in their midsts, and Mina blinks twice to make sure she’s not imagining things. “If you’ve got a secret horde of extremely talented hunters in our stores, do tell. Otherwise, I fear we’re doomed for another year of utter failure.” Nayeon drops to the couch at the last word, and Mina would laugh if not for the shadow across the room.

The figure straightens up, hood falling down as they do so, and a strangled gasp of shock escapes Mina’s mouth.

“How about me,” Jeongyeon asks, grin splitting her face. “I’ve been told I’m quite good at this hunting business.”

And Mina knows, as a still-dripping Nayeon lets out a scream and launches herself from the couch to throw a fist at Jeongyeon’s arm, as Jeongyeon wrestles Nayeon into an embrace she easily returns, as Jeongyeon reaches to pull her into the hug.

Mina knows, feeling warmed from the inside out as she steps into Jeongyeon’s arms, that Jeongyeon is here to stay this time.

“Welcome home, Jeongyeon.”

  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mina warns. Out of the many times she’s been in Sana’s workshop, none have filled her with the apprehension this time does.

Momo scoffs, a muttered _that’s never stopped her before_ reaching her ears. Mina takes small comfort in the fact that at least one person in this room is on her side.

Sana ignores them both, squinting in a way that Mina can’t help but admit is quite adorable. It doesn’t lessen her apprehension over what the other woman holds in her hand.

“It is,” Sana insists, peering down at the vial on her work bench. “I told you both. I’ve been researching this, and by tempering the black powder with thinned sap, it will create a delayed explosion. Can you tell me my theory isn’t sound?” She finally looks up at Mina, eyebrow quirked.

“I—” Mina sighs. “Yes, it does have merit, but you should not be testing this indoors, let alone in a setup like this.” She gestures to the room at large, the potions room that shares space with a smithy. It was the oddest setup Mina had ever seen, but Sana had merely grinned at her confusion and explained that she and Momo had always worked like this, preferred it to a more traditional setup. “What would Guildmaster Park think?”

Sana laughs, high and bright. Mina tries not to flinch as the hand holding the vial of saltpeter shakes with Sana’s amusement. “Jihyo has been in good spirits lately. She went out on her first hunt in a while the other week, and it’s made her less likely to care about an explosion here or there.”

Momo sighs. “For what it’s worth, Potions Master Myoui, I have spent many years working with Sana in this room, and she has yet to blow either of us up.”

“It’s not a matter of faith,” Mina says, fingers twisting about in the pockets of her cloak. “Sana’s one of the most brilliant minds I’ve ever seen when it comes to potions. I just don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Silence follows her words, as does the smirk that blossoms on Momo’s face.

Mina can’t miss the way Sana’s eyes grow shiny. “Really,” she asks. “You think that?”

“Of course,” Mina says, drawn to take a step closer. “You have to know that by now. I’ve never really been inclined to collaboration, but with you it feels natural.” She presses on, getting the sense that Sana doesn’t quite believe her. “You have a natural sense for how a potion is supposed to work, one many would envy if they only knew. You’re special, Sana.”

Off to the side, Momo mutters once more, but Mina misses it as she focuses on the smile blooming on Sana’s face.

“You’re going to make me cry,” Sana says, tears already brimming. “I—You—”

It isn’t often that Mina finds Sana speechless, much less by her own hand, but she suddenly knows what to do. The hug she pulls Sana into isn’t their first, but it is the first in which Mina is aware of how well Sana’s body molds to her own, how well her chin notches over Sana’s shoulder.

In the back of her mind, she’s aware of Momo slipping from the room.

Sana tucks her face into Mina’s shoulder, cranes her neck up as she speaks so that her words drag along the curve of Mina’s neck. “Does this mean you’ll let me do the experiment?”

Mina is thankful that their current position allows her to hide the red she knows is spreading across her face. “Okay, but if you blow something up, you’re paying for lunch for the next month.”

Sana pulls back, eyes soft with something Mina is afraid to put a name to, lest she be painfully, horribly wrong. “It’s a deal.”

  
“Myoui.”

Mina turns. “Momo,” she says, laugh already on her lips, “you made the right choice to leave when you did.” She gestures to her stained clothing. “Something did indeed blow up.”

Momo steps closer, and it’s only then that Mina notices the hard set to her mouth, a thin line where Mina has always been able to see a smile before. “I need you to be careful, Potions Master,” Momo rasps.

Mina raises a brow, feeling a spark of apprehension skip up her spine. “Careful? And I thought I said to just call me Mina.”

“With Sana.”

“Sana? I—”

Momo steps closer, bringing them toe to toe. Mina lifts her chin to maintain eye contact. “She doesn’t open up easily, not like she has with you. Just be careful with the piece of her heart that she has already given to you. That’s all I ask.”

Mina tries to swallow, but she finds her throat dry as willow bark. “Of course. I—I would never hurt Sana. She’s become very dear to me as well.”

All at once, Momo’s stone facade crumbles, leaving in its wake the kind face Mina has come to know over the last month. “You should tell her that, dear Potions Master.”

Mina lets out a nervous laugh. “Surely she knows.”

Momo gives a half shrug, lips quirked as if she knows something that Mina doesn’t but should. “It never hurts to be sure. Have a good day, Mina.”

As she leaves the Setting Sun’s guild hall, she tells herself that she’ll tell Sana how she feels the next time she sees her. She’ll repeat the words she said to Momo, use them to try and explain the warmth that spreads through her entire body when she so much as thinks of Sana. It doesn’t have to be romantic, she assures herself, merely a way of making sure Sana knows just how important she is to Mina.

  
Mina does nothing of the sort the next time she sees Sana. She meets the other woman in the marketplace and tells her that her hair looks particularly lovely today, and that’s where it stops, because Sana is important to her, had snuck up on Mina in the best of ways, and she can’t bear the thought of somehow managing to lose that.

  
“Does Jeongyeon seem… too happy?”

Mina stops organizing her shelves to fix Nayeon with a baleful look. “Too happy?”

“Hey,” Nayeon protests, “I’m not saying it’s bad! Just weird. Keep an eye on her, will you? She won’t tell me anything.”

Mina agrees with Nayeon’s worries so that she can work in peace, but weeks later, when she catches Jeongyeon smiling down at her bowl of porridge like it’s just given her a wagon of gold, Mina herself begins to wonder what exactly does have Jeongyeon so happy.

A week later, she learns that a _what_ is a _who_ and has to fight back manic laughter at the realization that Jeongyeon has unknowingly entered into a romance with the one person that makes her guildmaster want to tear her hair out on a regular basis. Mina keeps the secret to keep the peace, but she makes no secret of her interest. And every story Jeongyeon tells her about her hunts with Jihyo, every description of warm smiles and butterflies makes Mina think of one person and one person only.

It drives her a bit mad, eventually.

  
Mina paces back and forth in front of a seated Nayeon and Jeongyeon. Her hands are clasped behind her back, swinging as she makes her turns about the room. Eventually, once she feels like her thoughts are finally in order, she stops and turns to face both of them.

“Thank you for meeting with me today.”

Jeongyeon laughs. “Mina, we live in the same home.”

“And besides,” Nayeon continues, resting her head on her hands and looking equally amused, “we’d never deny you a meeting.”

“Right.” Mina twists her hands. Her eyes fall to gaze upon her shoes. She silently curses the churning in her stomach, feeling like a child hiding a broken rule. She knows nothing bad is going to happen, but it seems that not all of her has gotten that memo. “I’m just going to say it.” She takes a deep breath and looks up once more, dropping her gaze the moment she makes eye contact with Jeongyeon. “I’m going to start courting Minatozaki Sana of the Setting Sun Hunters Guild.” It’s the first time Mina has even alluded to her romantic interest in Sana aloud, and she feels the pressure in her chest whoosh out. “I’m fully aware that I need neither your permission nor blessing to begin doing so, but seeing as our guilds are often politically at odds, I wanted to let both of you know of my intentions.”

The end of her declaration is met with silence, and it’s only after 15 more seconds of hearing only herself breathing that Mina looks up. The wide grins that greet her do little to assail her anxiety.

“I told you,” Jeongyeon exclaims a moment later. She nudges Nayeon’s shoulder with her own. “Mina wouldn’t leave the house every week for someone she doesn’t care for!”

“I agreed with you,” Nayeon replies, eyes not leaving Mina’s. Impossibly, her grin widens. “I just didn’t think Mina would ever say anything about it.”

“I— you knew?” Mina drops into the nearest chair.

“Not exactly who it was,” Nayeon says, “just that you had a glow about you that seems to come from love.” Mina doesn’t miss the glance Nayeon shoots Jeongyeon’s way, knows they’re both thinking about the other woman’s joy of late. “You’re right in that you need no blessing of mine, but you have it, for what it’s worth. I may be at odds with Setting Sun and their harpy of a guildmaster, but that shouldn’t stand in the way of this.”

Mina exhales heavily. “Thank you.” She makes a mental note that Jeongyeon’s clandestine lover will likely not remain a secret for long. Nayeon will continue to press, and Mina knows it’s better that this gets settled sooner rather than later.

“So,” Jeongyeon chimes in, setting her elbows on the table with a thud, “tell us about her. What’s your grand plan, Mina?”

“Ah.” Mina clears her throat. “Well I was thinking to start with flowers…”

  
For two months, Mina does absolutely nothing. She still makes the trip once a week to see Sana, still revels in the time she spends with the other woman, drinks up every moment as if it will be their last. But she does nothing further, makes no move to express her interest to Sana. She thinks, maybe, that she catches Sana blushing while looking at her, but those phantom wishes have been haunting her since she first started spending time with Sana, and she pays them no mind.

The biggest romantic advance she makes is letting it slip to Nayeon that Park Jihyo is the woman Jeongyeon has been so taken with, and while that stirs up a momentary storm, the dust settles on what is ultimately a peaceful tableau.

Thankfully—or regrettably, depending on the day—Nayeon and Jeongyeon have taken it upon themselves to bring the two guilds together with more frequency now that they are directly connected. Mina acts as if the social events are nothing but a burden, but she knows the two of them see the way she lights up at the mention of Sana being there.

Today is a good day. Today is a garden party with only about a dozen people around.

Mina doesn’t flinch when a new weight rests itself upon her shoulder. She feels the exhale from Sana’s sigh skirt across her throat. The glass in her right hand suddenly feels far too heavy.

“I’m starting to think those two were just waiting for an excuse to be friends.” Sana presses closer, arms burning through Mina’s dress as they wrap around her waist. It takes what Mina knows is an awkward amount of time for her to realize what Sana is talking about and give a response.

Across the room, Nayeon, Jeongyeon, and Jihyo stand in a loose circle. The two guildmasters look as if they’re caught in a heated debate, but the small smiles on their faces dissolve any concerns an onlooker might have. Jeongyeon looks positively delighted, and Mina can’t help but let out a chuckle. “Funny how love can bring people together, no?”

Another sigh, wistful this time. Sana burrows deeper into Mina’s neck. Mina’s eyes dart around the room, well-aware that anyone from her guild who catches sight of them will tease her about it for days. “It is. It’s enough to make me jealous. Look.”

Mina refocuses on the trio, and the subject of Sana’s envy is readily apparent. Nayeon and Jihyo have continued to bicker with smiles on their faces, but Jeongyeon’s expression has shifted. The smile at her lips is softer now, one she likely isn’t even aware is there. Her eyes are trained on Jihyo, gaze so openly warm that something in Mina’s chest _aches_.

After a handful of seconds, she’s forced to look away, only to jolt when she realizes Sana is looking at _her_.

Sana giggles, her honey brown eyes crinkling. “They’re unbearable, aren’t they? I’m so happy for them, but sometimes all I can think about is how I don’t have someone to look at me like that.”

Sana’s words trip over one another in Mina’s brain, and Mina desperately wants to respond with something that will take Sana’s breath away. She’s been trying and failing for so long to convey to Sana how she feels, and now feels like as good a moment as any. “I’ll—”

“Hey!”

They both let out a small scream at the sudden appearance of Chaeyoung in front of them.

“Sorry,” Chaeyoung says, not looking at all apologetic. “I think Dahyun and I figured out a way to make people levitate using runes. I wanted to show you.”

“Levitate?” Sana’s voice is all but a squeal, and Mina can’t help but mourn the broken moment.

Sana is up and out of her seat in an instant to follow after Chaeyoung, but she doesn’t make it more than three steps before turning around. “Coming?” she asks, extending a hand towards Mina.

Mina says nothing, just slips her hand into Sana’s and lets herself be taken along for the ride.

Oddly enough, she finds her courage later that afternoon, standing over the punch bowl and wondering if she’s actually thirsty or if she just wants an excuse to do something with her hands when Sana gets too close for her sanity.

“Hey.”

Mina turns. “Done playing with runes?”

Chaeyoung laughs. “Not on your life. There’s so much more to explore! I saw you over here being a wallflower. Well. Table flower”—Chaeyoung continues over Mina’s groan—“and wanted to see if you were okay.”

Mina nods, smiling. “I am. Just thinking.” Unbidden, her eyes drift over to Sana, who is currently engaged in a lawn game with Momo, Tzuyu, and Dahyun.

“You should stop.”

Mina’s gaze whips back around to Chaeyoung. “What?”

“Thinking,” Chaeyoung says, smirking. “You do it too much, and you certainly do it too much with Sana.”

“I—”

“It’s clear to anyone with eyes that you adore each other, less clear as to why you haven’t done anything.”

“Sana can make a move just as well as I can,” Mina says, presenting an argument she’s gone over many a time. “Sana is…brave and outgoing. She would’ve said something by now.”

Chaeyoung, as only Chaeyoung would do at the end of Mina baring her heart, laughs. “Mina, my foolish genius friend, have you never considered that maybe Sana was waiting for you because she doesn’t want to lose you either?”

Mina blinks at that because, no, she hadn’t considered that even once. Sana had courage in her blood, had stepped up to the challenge with grace when her old master had died. She wouldn’t be afraid, not with Mina, not when Mina had never given Sana any reason to doubt—

 _You should tell her that, dear Potions Master_.

—had never given her any true reason to be certain, either.

She pushes past Chaeyoung, knowing by the other woman’s chuckle that she takes no offense, and all but speedwalks over to where Sana is playing lawn games.

Mina’s tongue feels heavy in her mouth, but she manages a mostly calm, “Sana.”

Sana’s curious eyes, as well as those of Momo, Dahyun, and Tzuyu, land on her. “Can I talk to you for a moment? Alone?”

“Oh.” Mina hopes she hasn’t imagined the excitement flashing in Sana’s eyes. “Of course.” She turns to her companions. “I’ll be back.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Momo says with a lazy wave. “We’ll be just fine by ourselves. Won’t we, ladies?”

Tzuyu nods, eyes looking far too bright for Mina’s liking.

Then, Dahyun grins, and Mina can’t help but wonder if possibly, maybe, Sana has been as obvious around her own guildmates as Mina had been with hers. “Oh, of course,” Dahyun says.

Once Sana is on her feet, Mina begins walking, and walking, not stopping until they’re by the edge of a pond, across the yard from where they had been gathered.

Sana reaches for her almost immediately once they stop, hands searing through the fabric of Mina’s blouse. “Is everything okay?”

“Not at all,” Mina admits. “I need your help with something.”

“Okay,” Sana replies, clearly intrigued.

Her eyes widen further when Mina takes both of her hands into her own. Mina’s heart crashes against her chest once, twice, before stilling as she takes a deep breath. “I have a hypothesis I want to prove.”

Sana says nothing, just curls her fingers softly against Mina’s palm. 

“You make every moment of my life brighter,” Mina begins, locking her eyes onto Sana’s. “You’re important to me in ways that I don’t really know if I’m capable of properly putting into words. A dear friend, but even dearer to me still. I’ve been trying, for many moons, to figure out a way to tell you this, but I scare easily, and I didn’t want to ruin a good thing.” Mina swallows heavily, wishing she had taken that cup of punch with her. “But I don’t want to miss out on a great thing either. So, I’d like to know, if I kiss you, will anything blow up?”

Sana’s sharp inhale shatters the calm Mina had forced upon herself, and all at once, her body begins to feel far too hot, far too small. “If you kiss me,” Sana repeats, wonder and disbelief painted across her face. 

Mina nods, scrambles for any last shred of bravado she may possess. “If I kiss you.”

Sana leans in, close enough for her breath to ghost over Mina’s lips as she speaks, issuing a challenge Mina has no intention of backing down from. “Find out, Potions Master.”

Their first kiss is a meeting of smiles, their second of tenderness, and their third? Well, Mina loses of track of when exactly their third kiss blends into their fourth, fifth, ninth, but she is undeniably aware of Sana’s gentle hands on her waist, the brush of her nose against her own. 

It’s only a wild yell from who she later will find is Chaeyoung that breaks them apart.

  
Later when they are finally alone again, hours after their friends had seen them kissing and all but tackled them into the pond in glee, Mina finds herself walking next to Sana through a familiar field of lavender.

“At least this time you’re scaring the newts off with me,” Sana teases, squeezing Mina’s hand.

Mina buries her face in Sana’s shoulder with a whine. “Don’t remind me! I was awful to you then.”

“It’s alright,” Sana says, and Mina can hear the smirk. “I now know it’s just because you were intimidated by me and thought I was pretty.”

Mina snorts, not finding it in her to argue with Sana when half of the sentence is correct. 

“How long,” Sana asks after a long moment.

Mina lifts her head from Sana’s shoulder, catches the other woman’s eye. “How long what?”

“How long have you wanted to be with me,” Sana asks, bringing them to a stop. A breeze blows across the field, and Mina finds herself momentarily dazed as it whips through Sana’s hair. 

“I—” Mina licks her lips. “Awhile now. Months. Seasons.”

Sana chuckles, pushes a hand through her hair. “I think I started falling for you the moment I saw you, even if I could tell you didn’t quite like me. I had always been a fan of you through your writing, and then to see you in person. Well, once you smiled at me, I was gone.”

Mina finds herself speechless at Sana’s words, but even more so at the way Sana is looking at her, as openly as she always has. Mina knows what to call that look in her eyes now.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” is what Mina eventually manages. 

Sana kisses her right as the wind picks up again, leaving them in a perfumed whirlwind of lavender petals. It feels like everything Mina had read about in those romance novels she so loved as a child, but better. Because no amount of ink on paper could ever capture how she feels right now, like something inside of her is expanding to the size of the sun.

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Sana whispers once they part.”But I couldn’t imagine a moment more lovely than this, so perhaps I’m not that sorry after all.”

Mina presses her giggle to the curve of Sana’s neck. “We’ll both agree to stop being sorry, then.”

She feels Sana nod, then laugh quietly to herself. “Does this mean I get a dedication in your next published work?”

Mina pulls back, smirking. “How about you write it with me?”

If their stroll through the fields hasn’t woken all of the newts, Sana’s delighted scream absolutely finishes the job. 

Minatozaki Sana, Mina thinks, as the woman in question pulls her into her arms and begins to spin her in a circle, is an absolute menace.

And Mina loves her for it. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading =D and an extra thank you to [moonrise31](https://twitter.com/moonrise31) for beta reading!!
> 
> Catch me @2yeonaus if so inclinced


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